Blackhound wrote: ↑Tue Feb 25, 2025 5:49 pm Dorsetshirelad - up here in Derbyshire, about an hour way from home, is a platform overlooking a pond that otters habitate. Thinking of a bivvy there in a couple of months.

Otters, might be easier to spot that beavers,I think I’ll have to go back again!

Tractionman wrote: ↑Tue Feb 25, 2025 7:46 pm
a lovely part of the world, Purbeck is one of my favourite places.

the little stove, could you say @dorsetshirelad which one it is?

Cheers Keith, yes lucky to have it on my doorstep.
The stove is the Firebox 5" folding, little heavy but a good companion on those long winter nights !

dorsetshirelad wrote: ↑Wed Feb 26, 2025 10:44 am

Tractionman wrote: ↑Tue Feb 25, 2025 7:46 pm
a lovely part of the world, Purbeck is one of my favourite places.

the little stove, could you say @dorsetshirelad which one it is?

Cheers Keith, yes lucky to have it on my doorstep.
The stove is the Firebox 5" folding, little heavy but a good companion on those long winter nights !

excellent, many thanks I'll look into this!

cheers,

Keith

Went out last night. Decided I'd treat myself to a luxury item:

Got to my spot, looked at the forecast, wondered whether to risk just bivvy bag, or put up my tarp.
Decided to guard against the rain front coming through any earlier than the forecast 7-9ish and put the tarp up. Wrapped myself in my quilt, and snuggled into my chair. Comfy. Warm. Good.

Approximately 23 seconds later, it started to rain. FFS. Hurriedly lashed my quilt to my mat, wrapped it all up in my bivvy bag, and stuck the whole lot under the tarp. Went back to the now slightly damp and exposed chair, but at least my favourite tree kept the worst of the rain off.

Started to scarf down some pretzel roll, Manchego, and Milano salami. Cracked open a can of Crunch:


Having spent the past hour jiggling about in my framebag, the contents exploded all over me. FFS 2. I quickly slurped the froth from the top of the can, wiped off the worst of the spillages from my jacket and trousers, and settled down in the chair once again. By the time I'd finished my refreshments, it had turned distinctly chilly, so I retired to bed. I spent a typically night of a decent hour or two of sleep followed by fitful dozing, all the while accompanied by a distinct fragrance of honeycomb. At some point round about 4pm, the local owl population met up for a chat in the canopy.

Dawn came, accompanied by the songs of Treecreepers, Tits, Nuthatches, Robins and Blackcaps. I packed up, and zoomed down the hill, accompanied by the forecasted rain shower.

2025 BAM 2/12
2025 total bivvies 2
Current streak (months) 75

dorsetshirelad wrote: ↑Wed Feb 26, 2025 10:36 am

Blackhound wrote: ↑Tue Feb 25, 2025 5:49 pm Dorsetshirelad - up here in Derbyshire, about an hour way from home, is a platform overlooking a pond that otters habitate. Thinking of a bivvy there in a couple of months.

Otters, might be easier to spot that beavers,I think I’ll have to go back again!

I meant to write beavers, not otters! Why did I write otters?

It was an otter mistake.

Bear wrote: 15%

RIP wrote: ↑Wed Feb 26, 2025 8:31 pm

Bear wrote: 15%

That's proper fighting juice that!

It's just a question of pack size/weight!
Plus I'm a lover, not a fighter.

Bearlegged wrote: ↑Wed Feb 26, 2025 11:49 pm It's just a question of pack size/weight!
Plus I'm a lover, not a fighter.

More Bang (especially after being shook up ) for your buck !

A lot of Belgian beers are temperamental like this.... chilled in fridge, open, nothing .... next one treated exactly the same, open, wait 2 seconds ..... whoosh, all over the kitchen floor ... bizarre.

fatbikephil wrote: ↑Mon Feb 24, 2025 11:14 pm

RIP wrote: ↑Mon Feb 24, 2025 7:43 pm
I still have very fond memories of our "An Englishman, a Scotsman, and a, er, Welshwoman" National Tea Day caper from a few years ago .

Could do a tea themed bivvy!

Tea themed for April?? Sounds good to me...any excuse...

Although International Tea Day falls on 21st May this year...

Worryingly, I seem to have left it till the very last night of the month to get my February BAM in, tomorrow night it will have to be...

Verena wrote: ↑Thu Feb 27, 2025 9:59 pm Worryingly, I seem to have left it till the very last night of the month to get my February BAM in, tomorrow night it will have to be...

January just drags on but February always seems to fly

Tractionman wrote: ↑Thu Feb 27, 2025 10:33 pm

Verena wrote: ↑Thu Feb 27, 2025 9:59 pm Worryingly, I seem to have left it till the very last night of the month to get my February BAM in, tomorrow night it will have to be...

January just drags on but February always seems to fly

Definitely!!

Looks cold but sunny though, so am really looking forward to some stars and then a sunrise, always the best bit.

Mr Sparkle wrote: ↑Wed Feb 26, 2025 7:53 pm It was an otter mistake.

Bearlegged wrote: ↑Wed Feb 26, 2025 11:49 pm It's just a question of pack size/weight!
Plus I'm a lover, not a fighter.

for the pretzel roll. Didn't know that's what they're called in English. Laugenbroetchen where I'm from. Absolutely delighted when I discovered in my local Lidl.

Speaking of themed BAMs... I'm currently working on plans for a saunapcking weekend at the end of March, with a Wales curious young chap from London who I met on an audax ride... see if I can convert him to join the BB family...once he's thawed out and dried off that is

Verena wrote: ↑Thu Feb 27, 2025 10:48 pm

Tractionman wrote: ↑Thu Feb 27, 2025 10:33 pm

Verena wrote: ↑Thu Feb 27, 2025 9:59 pm Worryingly, I seem to have left it till the very last night of the month to get my February BAM in, tomorrow night it will have to be...

January just drags on but February always seems to fly

Definitely!!

Looks cold but sunny though, so am really looking forward to some stars and then a sunrise, always the best bit.

Yes the shortening darkness hours and some sort of lingering light in the evening is good to see, some warmth in the sun too, yet still with a crystal clear night sky for stargazing, it might encourage me to get an overnighter in fairly soon too!

Speaking of themed BAMs... I'm currently working on plans for a saunapcking weekend at the end of March, with a Wales curious young chap from London who I met on an audax ride... see if I can convert him to join the BB family...once he's thawed out and dried off that is

Saunapacking sounds a good idea! I've had the privilege of experiencing a good array of saunas whilst in Finland, and it really is a lovely thing. Especially a dip in a lake or some snow midway through. Look forward to the write-ups!

Another last-minute BaM .

Continuing the "bird hide" theme I headed south last night to somewhere between Tring and Aston Clinton to the most palatial one so far: space for 'Boners-a-plenty and it even had a door to keep out the draughts. There was wildlife artwork, too .

The ride along the canal was a muddy, slippery chore. When faced with the choice of "canal" or "spikey hedge" I went for the hedge, every time .

Toasty warm in the Buffalo Bag, but the mud on the bike had frozen around the brakes by morning, locking the wheel . The ducks seemed to laugh off the cold (as ducks do about everything).
A rather limp sunrise, as everything was covered in fog, so I pedalled home on the back lanes for breakfast No2 and a day of WFH.

Bird hides are very civilised places for winter bivvies .

https://www.instagram.com/p/DGnhbJWoqoh ... RlcmZodmho

17/17

BAM February done, in the Cotswolds earlier in the week.

Just a tick marker for now, photo s to follow, probably in March

I also made it out last night, seem to be making a habit of last minute com this year...

Pictures to follow tomorrow...

Last year I went out for the night at a campsite a friend owns with some old mates I've not really seen in about 20 years (we used to drink in the same pubs every weekend) plus a now new mate (Sheldon) who is a friend of theirs. We spent the evening sitting round the fire-pit drinking and talking about old times before retiring to the hammocks. I didn't pay to stay there but I did drive so not a BAM. I met up with one of them again in January for another night out at a bit of land a friend of his owns for another night of drinking an talking rubbish - aided by the fact that the land is an orchard and so we were provided with some home made cider. Again I drove so not a BAM.

Last Wednesday I had a message to say they were going camping at the weekend, heading to the forest this time and on the bikes so to meet them in Newport at 4:30 Saturday if I was interested. So from low motivation last month I gone to doing March's BAM on the night of the 1st.

Forecast was for overnight temps of 6 so I packed the spring/autumn top-quilt and underquilt which helped offset the weight of 2 litres of water (we be cooking dinner and breakfast) and the required number of beers Despite all this I managed to get it all on the bike with only the phone, Ralph and 2 beers in the waist pack.



The ride into Newport was fine as it didn't feature much climbing but the track up to the top of the downs was likely to be harder as I had the unloaded gear choice of 34/18 fitted and the weight of the liquids seemed considerable.

In the end it turned out ok and we were soon approaching the woods. I was looking forward to being shown some amazing new spot but it turns out so were they so we ended up at an area I've used before. Enough suitable trees for the two of us with hammocks (Rich and myself) and a flat-ish area for Sheldon's tent. As I started to get set-up Rich announced that he'd left his hammock at home, less than ideal. Various ways of getting it there were discussed, although I will say I think my idea to train a buzzard to fly back for it were dismissed before we'd really considered it properly In the end he decided to make a shelter from his tarp and hope for the best. This had to be folded to keep the wind off and form a groundsheet. The ground was relatively soft as there was a good layer of leaf-litter but how much insulation this would provided would remain to be seen.

We weren't very far from a path (nowhere is) and we saw a guy walk past with a rucksack on. We kept quiet and he didn't spot us. We were about 40m from the path but there is very little vegetation at the moment. A few minutes later we hear someone shout out "Are you camping?" we all froze and looked at each other, then spotted it was the guy with the rucksack. We gingerly advised we were and he asked if we knew any other spots in the woods as he was looking for somewhere. We invited him to stay with us he if wanted so now we were 4. Turned out to be a really nice guy called Josh, who had walked over from Yarmouth over 2 days. He lives in Lymington and just thought he head out for 2 nights over the weekend.

We all cooked dinner - most had noodles, then sat around drinking and talking and drinking until about 11 pm. It was now getting chilly so we headed to bed. The thermometer had already dropped to 4, mmm, so much for a low of 6 Luckily as I knew the evening would involve sitting around I had brought my insulated trousers and down jacket so looks like I'd be sleeping in them. A reasonable nights sleep was had, it was obvious in the morning that the foot end of the hammock was too low so I slid down that end, if I had realized in the night I could have just turned round.



Despite the makeshift shelter Rich said he slept surprisingly well. He had brought lots of insulation for his hammock and some was synthetic so he laid on that and it seemed to keep the chill off from the ground. His is the triangle shaped tunnel



The overnight low was 1 in the trees. I was just warm enough but I should have brought the winter quilts. Out in the open it had been below freezing judging by the frost and frozen puddles. We had breakfast, packed up and headed out. I had quite a lot of water left so donated this to Josh as he would have a long walk before he could top his bottle up. This also meant he could have a brew with breakfast as he was running low on water and had planned to save it. It also made my bike lighter One advantage of a social bivi is there is actually a picture of me as proof I was there



The first few miles would be all downhill so I left the down jacket on. When we got to the bottom of the track we stopped at the road to re-group. When Sheldon arrived I half joking asked what he'd forgotten as his front harness was empty? Ahh, so his sleeping bag had decided to abandon ship on the bumpy descent. He said we should ride on and he'd go back... but I quickly explained that's not how Boners do things so we all started back up the track. Aided by the high gearing and desire to warm up I shot off at great speed to look for it. If I'm honest when I set out I was hoping it wouldn't be too far back up the hill but I was committed now. Obviously it was most of the way up, in fact it had dropped out just as the climb leveled out a half mile back up the track. I was part way back when the other two arrived so we secured it back in the harness and headed back down again. We then road back along the roads to Newport before I peeled off for home, BAM mojo recharged ready for the next one.

That's 3/3 for 2025 and I think I'm now on 62 in a row.

sean_iow wrote: ↑Mon Mar 03, 2025 11:01 am
As I started to get set-up Rich announced that he'd left his hammock at home …..

Tsk! How can you forget your hammock FFS?

Says he who has managed, on different occasions, to forget tarp (twice), riding boots, jacket (twice again), lighter - so no cuppa, stove, fuel and many others. Not to mention all the things I’ve left behind..

I'd left it till very very last minute, again, Friday night.
Three was definitely something in the air, maybe the first proper sunny weekend, maybe the end of half term, but in the early evening Brynmawr was kind of buzzing with people, cars, kids, motorbikes, and generally party/ pissup was in the air...
So I decided to head out very much later than I normally would, thinking, and rightly so, that by then everything had calmed down a bit on the roads...
It was promising to be a fine night of course, cold, clear, still, with a starry night to look foward to, and then my favourite, sunrise....
I again just went to my newly found local spot, but went a bit higher up on the path this time.
Nice views back to Brynmawr from there
IMG_20250301_045857 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr

Good morning
IMG_20250301_062249 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr

Coffee, of course
IMG_20250301_061941 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr

I was treated to a beautiful sunrise
IMG_20250301_070915 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr

IMG_20250301_062314 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr

IMG_20250301_063719 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr

I then left my stuff and went for a little walk higher up the hill. So much more to explore for me up there! It really was a glorious morning, birds started to sing, and it was warming up a bit by then
IMG_20250301_065148 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr

When I got back and close to my bike, bivvy and coffee things, I saw a man and two big labradors, wonder what they thought when they came across my stuff? First they seemed to give a wide berth, then they came over and had a chat, the dogs had excitedly rummaged through my stuff, he asked if I'd camped here, and we generally agreed that it is a beautiful place to be on such a fine morning.

I then went home, had a big breakfast, shower, and then went out for a bike ride up and down both sides of the valley a few times for the morning, just to get a bit more climbing into them legs... very nice day.

IMG_20250301_095514 by Verena Zimmer, on Flickr